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January 25, 2010

Good Riddance to the Farting Cadburys

Much
lamenting across Britain with the news that Cadbury (who has been
making and selling chocolate since 1824) is to be taken over by the
American Kraft Foods, the second largest food and drinks company on
the planet.

All
very sad, of course, and one must worry whether the takeover
will lead to job losses or make a profit for the shareholders but it is worth considering whether Britain
might just not be better off without chocolate. Obesity concerns
aside, it is a dangerous commodity. Take, for instance, Horace
Walpole's account of the death of King George II in 1760.

He
went to bed well last night, rose at six this morning as usual,
looked, I suppose, if all his money was in his purse, and called for
his chocolate. A little after seven, he went into the water-closet;
the German valet de chamber heard a noise, listened, heard
something like a groan, ran in, and found the hero of Oudenarde and
Dettingen on the floor, with a gash on his right temple, by falling
against the corner of a bureau. He tried to speak, could not, and
expired.

(Horace Walpole - Letter to George Montagu 25th October 1760)

When I first read this passage , I assumed the cause of this untimely death was the water-closet. I now suspect that the chocolate at least played a part.

It is also worth remembering that the Cadburys were Quakers. Their dread of hard liquor is part of the reason why they went into the tea, coffee and cocoa business in the first place. I have since learned that these hot beverages have a pernicious, windy effect and, in extreme cases, can lead people to become Quakers themselves - as Jonathan Swift reveals in The Benefit of Farting Explained.

As
in sipping of these liquors hot, there is commonly as much wind as
water sucked in, which through modesty being debarred a passage
downwards when nature offers, recoils up into the bowels, stomach and
head, and there occasions all those dreadful symptoms usually
ascribed to the vapours – all which one seasonable fart might have prevented. It has likewise been assigned as the first cause of Quakerism and enthusiasm, as Hudibras observes.

As wind in hypochondria pent

Is but a fart, if downward sent;

But, if suppressed, it upward flies

And vents itself in Prophecies.

(Jonathan Swift - The Benefit of Farting Explained 1722)

So three cheers for Kraft Foods. They are, unwittingly but at a stroke, ridding the United Kingdom from a substance that has caused the death of kings and led to social humiliation for many a commoner.